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Ian Duhig and Denise Riley shortlisted for Forward prizes

We are delighted that Picador poets Ian Duhig and Denise Riley have been shortlisted for The 2016 Forward Prize for Best Collection.

We are delighted that Picador poets Ian Duhig and Denise Riley have been shortlisted for The 2016 Forward Prize for Best Collection.

This is the 25th year of the Forward Prizes for Poetry, one of the most coveted poetry awards in the UK and Ireland. The awards celebrate excellence in poetry and are awarded to published poets for work in print in the last year. Previous Forward Prizes winners include Don Paterson, Sean O’Brien, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy and Kathleen Jamie.

Writer Malika Booker, who is joined on the Forward judging panel by the poets George Szirtes and Liz Berry, the singer/songwriter Tracey Thorn and Poetry magazine’s editor Don Share, said that this year’s contenders were writers 'who are challenging poetry, who are using the formal constraints but are really modern, really expanding what we know as poetry and what we know as the English language'.

Ian Duhig has been shortlisted for The Blind Roadmaker, a brilliant and eclectic collection exploring urban poverty, determinism, social justice and the consolations of poetry and music.